Norman, John - Gor 19 - Kajira of Gor.txt

by Kajira of Gor [lit]

  not consciously, but it now seemed to me as if that might be right.

  “Does Mistress wish to dress like a man?” she asked.

  “No,” I said, “I suppose not. Not really.”

  “I can try to find a mans clothing for Mistress if she wishes,” said the girl.

  “No,” I said. “No.” It was not really that I wanted to wear a man’s clothing,

  literally. It was only that I thought that it might be better to wear a more

  mannish type of clothing. After all, had I not been taught that I was, for most

  practical purposes, the same as a man, and not something deeply and radically

  different? Too, such garb has its defensive purposes. Is it not useful, for

  example, in helping a girl to keep men from seeing her as what she is, a woman?

  “Mistress,” said the girl, helping me on with the silken robe. I belted the

  yellow-silk sash. The hem of the robe came high on the thighs. I looked at

  myself, startled, in the mirror.

  In such a garment, lovely, clinging, short, closely belted, there was no doubt

  that I was a woman.

  “Mistress is beautiful!” said the girl.

  “Thank you,” I said. I turned, back and forth, looking at myself in the mirror.

  I adjusted the belt, making it a little tighter. The girl smiled.

  “Are such garments typical of this place?” I asked.

  “Does Mistress mean,” asked the girl, “that here sexual differences are clearly

  marked by clothing, that here sexual differences are important and not blurred,

  that men and women dress differently here?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. “The answer is ‘Yes,’ Mistress.”

  “Sexuality is important here, then?” I said.

  “Yes, Mistress,” she said. “Here sexuality is deeply and fundamentally

  important, and here women are not men, and men are not women. The sexes are

  quite different, and here each is true to itself.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “By means of different garbs, then,” she said, “it is natural that these

  important and fundamental differences be marked, the garbs of men being

  appropriate to their nature, for example, to their size and strength, and those

  of women to their nature, for example, to their softness and beauty.”

  “I see,” I said. I was a bit frightened. In this place, I gathered, the fact

  that I was a woman was not irrelevant to what I was. That I was a woman was, I

  gathered, at least in this place, something fundamentally important about me.

  This fact would be made clear about me even by the clothing which I wore. I

  glanced at the wardrobe. Deceit and subterfuge, I suspected, were not in those

  fabrics. They were such, I suspected, as would mark me as a woman and even

  proclaimed me as such. How would I f are in such a place, I wondered, where it

  might be difficult to conceal or deny my sex. How terrified I was at the thought

  that I might have to be true to my sex, that I might have little choice here but

  to be what I was, a woman, and wholly. I looked in the mirror.

  That is what I am here, I thought, a woman.

  There was a sudden, loud knock at the door.

  I cried out, startled. The girl turned white, and then, facing the door,

  immediately dropped to her knees. She cried out something, frightened. The door

  opened.

  A large man stood framed in the doorway. He seemed agile and strong. He glanced

  about. His eyes seemed piercing.’

  He had broad shoulders and long arms. His hair was cut rather short, and was

  brown, flecked with gray. He wore a white tunic, trimmed in red. He looked at me

  and I almost fainted. It was something in his eyes. I knew I had never seen a

  man like this before. There was something different about him, from all other

  men I had seen. It was almost as though a lion had taken human form.

  “It is Ligurious, my Master,” said the girl, her head now down to the floor, the

  palms of her hands on the tiles.

  I swallowed hard, and then tried, desperately, to meet the man’s gaze. I must

  show him that I was a true person.

  “Get on the bed,” he said. His voice had an accent. I could not place it.

  I fled to the bed and crept obediently upon it.

  He came to the edge of the bed and looked down at me. I half Jay, half crouched

  on the bed. I was very conscious of the shortness of the robe I wore.

  He said something to Susan and she sprang up and came to the edge of the bed. He

  said something else to her. I did not understand the language, or even recognize

  it.

  “He says he thinks you will prove quite suitable,” she said to me, in English.

  “For what?” I begged.

  “I do not know, Mistress,” she said.

  “Get on your back,” he said.

  Immediately, obediently, I lay supine before him.

  “Raise your right knee, and extend your left leg,” he said, palms of your hands

  at your sides, facing upward.”

  I immediately assumed this position. I felt very vulnerable, particularly,

  interestingly, as the palms of my hands were exposed. I began to breathe deeply.

  I was terrified. I also realized, suddenly, that I was very aroused, sexually,

  obeying him.

  The man glanced to the side. He said something to the girl.

  “He notes that you have not touched your breakfast,” she said.

  I moaned. I hoped that he was not displeased. It had been safe to displease the

  men I had hitherto known, or most of them. They might be displeased with

  impunity. I was afraid, however, to displease this man. I did not think he would

  accept being displeased. He, I was sure, would simply punish me, and well. He

  might even kill me.

  He looked down at me.

  I was much aroused. I whimpered. I expected him to rape me. I was even eager to

  be raped, anything to please him.

  I felt his hand take my ankle. I was so charged with sensation that I almost

  fainted at the touch. Then I became aware that his grip was like steel. Then I

  saw him take a string from about his neck. On this string there was a tiny key.

  Startled, I felt the key inserted in the lock on my anklet. Then the anklet was

  removed. I lay trembling on the bed.

  He stood there then, looking down at me, the anklet, string and key in his hand.

  I then realized, partly in relief, and, in a part of me, with disappointment,

  that I was not then, or at least not then, to be raped. I was not then to feel

  his strong hands on me, forcing me, as a woman, imperiously to his win.

  “May I speak?” I whispered.

  ‘Yes,” he said.

  “Who are you?” I asked. “Who is she? Where am I? What am I doing here? What do

  you want of me?”

  “I am Ligurious, first minister of Corcyrus,” be said. “She is unimportant. Her

  name is Susan. She is a slave.”

  “No,” I said. “I mean, who is Ligurious? Who are you? I have never beard of

  you.”

  “You need know little more of me than that I am the first minister of Corcyrus,”

 
he said.

  I looked at him. He must have some connection, of course, with the men who had

  come to my apartment. He had a key for the anklet.

  “Where am V’ I asked.

  “In Corcyrus,” he said.

  “But where is Corcyrus?” I begged. “I do not even know in what part of the world

  I aml”

  He looked at me, puzzled.

  The girl said something to him. He smiled.

  “Am I in Africa?” I asked. “Am I in Asia?”

  “Have you not noticed subtle differences in the gravity here,” he asked, “from

  what you have been accustomed to? Have you not noticed that the air here seems

  somewhat different from that with which you have hitherto been familiar?”

  “I have seemed to notice such things,” I said, “but I was drugged in my

  apartment, Obviously such sensations are delusory, merely the effects of that

  drug.”

  “The drug,” be said, “does not produce such effects.”

  “What are you telling me?” I asked, frightened.

  “After a short while,” he said, “you will no longer think of these things. You

  will not even notice them, or, at least, not consciously. You will have made

  your adjustments and accommodations. You will have become acclimated, so to

  speak. At most you may occasionally become aware that you are now experiencing a

  condition of splendid vitality and health.”

  “What are you telling me?” I asked, frightened.

  “This is not Earth,” be said. “This is another planet.”

  I regarded him, disbelievingly.

  “Does this seem to be Earth to you?” he asked.

  “No,” I whispered.

  “Does this seem to be a room of Earth to you?” he asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “You have been brought here by spaceship,” he said.

  I could not speak.

  “The technology involved is more sophisticated, more advanced, than that with

  which you are familiar,” be said.

  “But you speak English,” I -said. “She speaks Englishl”

  “I have learned some English,” he said. “She, however, speaks it natively.” He

  turned to the girl. He said something to her.

  “I have been given permission to speak,” she said. “I am from Cincinnati, Ohio,

  Mistress,” she said.

  “She was brought to this world more than two years ago,” he said.

  “My original name was Susan,” she said. “My last name does not matter. When I

  became a slave, of course, my name was gone. Animals do not have names, except

  as their masters might choose to name them. The name ‘Susan’ was again put upon

  me, but now, of course, I have it only as a slave name.”

  “Why was she brought here?” I asked.

  “For the usual reason for which an Earth female is brought here,” he said.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “To be a slave,” he said.

  He then turned to the girl and said something. She nodded.

  He then turned again to me. “You may break position,” he said.

  I rolled to my stomach on the couch, clutching at it. I shuddered.

  I was not on Earth.

  “Why” have I been brought here?” I asked. “To be a slave, to be branded, to wear

  a collar, to serve some man as though he might be my master.”

  “He would be your master,” said the man, very evenly, very quietly, very

  menacingly.

  I nodded, frightened. It was true, of course. If I were a slave then he who was

  my master would indeed be my master, and totally. I could be owned as

  completely, and easily, as Susan, or any other woman.

  “But I think you will be pleased to learn what we have in store for you,” he

  said.

  “What?” I asked, turning to my side, pulling the robe down on my thighs.

  “In time,” he said, “I think things will become clearer to you.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “Do you have any other questions?” he asked.

  I half rose up on the couch, my left leg under me, my palms on the surface of

  the couch. “Am I still a virgin?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  This pleased me. I would not have wished to have lost my virginity while

  unconscious. A girl would at least like to be aware of it when it happens. Too,

  I was pleased because I thought that the possession of my virginity might make

  me somehow more valuable. Perhaps I could use it somehow to improve my position

  in this world. Perhaps I could somehow use it as a prize which I might award for

  gain, or as a bargaining device in some negotiation in which I might be

  involved. Then I looked into the eyes of Ligurious, fix minister of Corcyrus. I

  shuddered. I realized then that my virginity, on this world, was nothing, and

  that it might simply be taken from me, rudely and peremptorily, whenever men

  might please.

  Ligurious then turned and left the room. As he had left the room, though be had

  scarcely noticed her, Susan had knelt, with her head to the tiles. She now rose

  to her feet.

  “Earlier,” I said, “your master, when beside the couch, said something to you.

  What was it?”

  “it is his desire,” she said, “that you eat.”

  I quickly left the couch and went to the small table, on which the tray reposed.

  I did not wish to displease Ligurious.

  He was the sort of man who was to be obeyed, immediately and perfectly.

  I loosened my robe and sat down, cross-legged, on the cushion before the table.

  I picked up a piece of the yellow bread.

  “Oh, no, Mistress,” said the girl, putting out her hand.

  “That is how men sit. We are women. We kneel.”

  “I will sit,” I told her.

  “Mistress understands, surely,” said the girl, in misery, “that I must make

  reports to Ligurious, my master.”

  “I will kneel,” I said.

  “That is much more lovely,” said the girl, approvingly.

  I then began to eat, kneeling. This posture, to be sure, though I do not think I

  would have admitted it to the girl, did strike me as being much more feminine

  than that which I had earlier adopted. Certainly, at least, it made me feel much

  more feminine. I wondered if there was a certain rightness to women kneeling.

  Certainly we look beautiful, kneeling. ‘Me posture, too, at least if we are

  permitted to keep our knees closed, permits us a certain modest reserve with

  respect to our intimacies. Too, it is a position which one may assume easily and

  beautifully, and from which it is possible to rise with both beauty and grace.

  To be sure, the position does suggest not only beauty and grace but also

  submissiveness.

  This thought troubled me. But then I thought that if women should be submissive,

  then, whatever might be the truth in these matters, such postures would be

  appropriate and natural for them. In any event, the posture did make me feel

  delicately and
exquisitely feminine. I was somewhat embarrassed, to be sure, by

  these feelings. Then it suddenly seemed absurd to me that I should be

  embarrassed, or should feel guilty or ashamed, about these feelings. I think I

  then realized, perhaps for the first time, fully, the power of the conditioning

  devices to which I had been subjected. How strange, and pernicious, I thought,

  that a woman should be made to feel guilty about being feminine, truly feminine,

  radically feminine! What a tribute this was to the effectiveness of contemporary

  conditioning techniques! In the world from which I came sexuality was not an

  ingredient but an accessory. Here, on the other hand, I suspected, men and women

  were not the same.

  Indeed, it seemed that here I would be expected to assume certain postures and

  attitudes, and genuinely feminine ones, perhaps merely because I was a woman. In

  this world it seemed that sexuality, and perhaps a deeply natural sexuality, was

  an ingredient, and not a mere accessory. It might lie at the very core of this

  world. An essential and ineradicable ele-red to be sexuality, with its basic

  distinctions between human beings, dividing them clearly into different sorts,

  into males and females. In a world such as this I realized that I might not only

  be permitted to express my natural, fundamental nature, but that I might be

  encouraged to do so. This was a world in which my femininity, whatever it was,

  and wherever it might lead, was not to be denied to me. I glanced at the whip on

  the wall. On this world, I suspected, I might even be given no choice but to be

  true to my sex, and fully. For a moment this made me angry.

  Surely I had a right to frustrate and deny my sex if I wished. If I was afraid

  to be a woman, truly and fundamentally, with all that it might entail, surely I

  should not be forced to become one! Yet I knew that in my heart I felt a sudden,

  marvelous surge of hope, a sense of possible liberation, that I might here, on

  this world, be freed, even if I were placed in a steel collar, to be what I

  truly was, not merely a human being, but the kind of human being I actually was,

  a human female, a woman.

  “Mistress’ drink is cold,” said the girl. “Let me have it reheated or fetch you

  a fresh one.”

  “No,” I said. “It is fine.” I lifted the small, handleless bowl